Scientist Interview

Ashley Rossin is a PhD student at University of Alaska Fairbanks studying the effect of ocean acidification on bivalves with Dr. Amanda Kelley.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in ocean acidification.

I was always interested in science as a kid, and I was constantly asking questions. When I was 14 I went SCUBA diving for the first time, and I was amazed at the colors and the life that lived just below the surface. In the midst of that, I saw a stark white coral head, and didn’t understand why it was white. When we surfaced, I asked the dive master about it, and he explained coral bleaching, and how it was happening more and more often due to the increase in temperature. I started looking into it more, and learned that tropical corals bleach due to their symbiotic algae leaving during stress, but there was a type of coral that didn’t have that algae. I wondered what was going to happen to them with climate change.